April 24 (Bloomberg) -- Jobless Americans are using
increased tourism as a pathway back to employment, finding jobs
at hotels and motels as those facilities step up hiring to meet
growing demand.

“With more people on the road, we’ll need more people
working in hotels,” said Jan Freitag, a senior vice president
at Smith Travel Research Inc. He cited a 4.1 percent increase in
first-quarter hotel bookings from a year ago as a “very
positive sign” that U.S. tourism is rebounding.

The Federal Reserve reported the shift in its most recent
survey of current economic conditions, with data collected on or
before April 2 indicating “strong” trends in several
districts. St. Louis -- which encompasses all of Arkansas and
parts of Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana and
Illinois -- reported that hotel-service companies “announced
plans to expand operations and hire new workers.”

A rise in leisure and business travel is “creating
employment opportunities all across the country in the travel
industry that is helping in the job recovery and benefiting the
economy,” said David Huether, senior vice president of
economics and research at the U.S. Travel Association in
Washington.

About 7.6 million people, or 5.7 percent of the U.S.
workforce, held tourism-related jobs in March, the association
estimates. The travel industry accounted for “a substantial
component” -- 2.7 percent -- of 2010 gross domestic product,
according to a Jan. 19 statement from the White House.

Diverse Skills

These companies need people with diverse skills for jobs
that can’t be outsourced, Huether said. The number of Americans
working at hotels, motels and casino hotels rose 2.9 percent in
February to 1.6 million from the same month in 2010, outpacing a
2.7 percent increase for all employees, data from the Labor
Department show.

Marriott International Inc., the largest publicly traded
U.S. hotel chain, has forecast that its U.S. staff will rise 6
percent this year to 212,000 from about 200,000 as of Dec. 31,
Laura Paugh, senior vice president of investor relations, said
in a telephone interview. Marriott operates hotels in all 50
states, and bookings nationwide have been “quite strong,” with
growth driven by leisure, foreign and business travelers.

The “good news” is that Marriott is “filling jobs when
they become vacant,” a change from the 18-month recession that
ended in June 2009, when the Bethesda, Maryland-based company
was reducing hours, Paugh said. “Occupancy is high enough that
most people are working a full shift again.”

‘Pretty Solid’ Recovery

That’s a reflection of a “pretty solid” mid-cycle
recovery in lodging that began in mid-2009, said Joel Simkins,
an analyst in New York at Credit Suisse Group AG. Occupancy, at
63.6 percent in March, is approaching historic rates, as the
return of business travel, which “really got hammered” during
the recession, is driving the rebound in bookings, he said.

After years as a care giver, Angela Cook found work at a
hotel in 2010, when the 43-year-old Los Angeles resident
participated in a five-day training program to place jobless
black workers in union hospitality positions. She says she
needed a “boost of confidence” to jumpstart her career; she
was on welfare and “looking for work was very discouraging.”

The program made Cook “more employable,” she says, and
upon completion, she was hired as a cocktail server at the
Wilshire Grand Hotel. While she was laid off when the hotel
closed for renovations in December, she got a job last month
with the Sheraton Universal in Universal City, California, where
she’s a banquet server for events including weddings, parties
and business meetings.

High-End Comeback

The high-end market has “come back the quickest,” and
this probably will trickle down to road-side and economy motels,
which also may add to their staffs, said Simkins, who maintains
an “outperform” recommendation on Marriott and Starwood Hotels
& Resorts Worldwide Inc.

U.S. lodging operators booked a record 1.07 billion rooms
in the 12 months ended March 31, up 4.4 percent from a year
earlier, based on data from Smith Travel Research. This
“unprecedented demand” comes as construction of new rooms is
at a 20-year low, so the increase is accommodated almost
exclusively at existing locations, Freitag said.

Foreigners account for 14 percent of travel spending, and
about half of last year’s increase in industry employment was
driven by these tourists, Huether said, citing association
estimates. That’s because they’re likely to stay in hotels and
eat out regularly while vacationing, he said.

Marriott’s International Guests

The number of such guests at Marriott’s U.S. hotels rose 7
percent during the last 12 months, with visitors from China and
Brazil up 32 percent and 16 percent, Paugh said. While Americans
still account for about 95 percent of domestic business, the
company “would love to see the number of international arrivals
increase.”

That may happen following President Barack Obama’s Jan. 19
executive order to increase tourism by making it easier for
Chinese and Brazilian visitors to enter the country. Obama asked
the State and Homeland Security Departments to develop a plan to
accelerate visa applications for these countries, recommending
the process be cut to three weeks from four months.

This is the industry’s “hot topic du jour” as hotel
operators are “salivating” at the prospect of more visitors
from these nations, particularly in so-called gateway markets
such as New York or Miami, Simkins said. While hotels in Florida
have seen a “real explosion in travel from Latin and South
America,” he’s cautious about Europe, because of the region’s
sovereign-debt crisis.

Rising Gasoline Prices

Rising gasoline prices in the U.S. may curtail the
affordability of travel for some Americans during the summer,
Huether said. The average gallon of regular unleaded is up about
20 percent to $3.86 -- 13 cents off a three-year peak -- from a
low of $3.21 in December, according to Heathrow, Florida-based
AAA, the largest U.S. motoring organization.

Higher prices historically have been “a non-issue” for
Wyndham Worldwide Corp., although some say they prompt shorter
trips, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Stephen Holmes said
at a March 19 conference hosted by JPMorgan Chase & Co. The
Parsippany, New Jersey-based company is “so geographically
dispersed,” it can accommodate travelers “whether they make a
300-mile trip or a 400-mile or 700-mile trip.”

Wyndham, the fourth-largest publicly traded U.S. chain, is
scheduled to report first-quarter earnings tomorrow, followed by
Choice Hotels International Inc., manager of Comfort Inn and
Econo Lodge, on April 26.

Low-Wage Jobs

Some of the jobs being created have low wages and no
benefits, with hotels operating at smaller staffs than in the
past, said Annemarie Strassel, a communications coordinator with
Unite Here, a New York-based union representing industry
workers. Employment still is 223,900 off the July 2008 peak,
Commerce data show.

Even so, the industry’s employees tend to be younger and
more diverse -- ethnically and educationally -- than others,
Huether said. Many people who are jobless lack a college degree,
so tourism “provides opportunities to the very portion of our
population looking for work.”

Unemployment was 25 percent in March for teenagers 16 to 19
years old and 12.6 percent for people who haven’t finished high
school. The national rate, at 8.2 percent, has stalled above 8
percent since February 2009, Labor Department data show.

Cook, a high school graduate, makes $8 an hour plus tips in
her new job, which she says is “great” even though she’s part-time, so she supplements her income with care-giving work that
pays $9 an hour. She hopes to increase her hours to become
eligible for health insurance soon, she says.

The improving economy is leading to more events at hotels
such as Cook’s. Marriott’s full-service locations generate as
much as 40 percent of domestic revenue from event travelers, and
there’s been “an awful lot of strength” particularly for group
meetings, Paugh said, with attendance strong and cancellations
down.

The chain has plans to add as many as 15,000 rooms in the
U.S. this year, which is “really meaningful” to generating
more employment, she said. “The hotel industry is a great job
creator.”